


Behavioural Examination

by GhastlyDisco



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 23:36:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9521051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhastlyDisco/pseuds/GhastlyDisco





	

Hi, it’s Ghastly Disco. This is my new account, and as soon as I find my old stories in the catacombs of my backup drive, I’ll reupload them. At least they were all short stories, so I didn’t leave off on a cliffhanger. Sometimes I’ll be reading a story, and I’ll be really enjoying it, when suddenly the author removes all their fics and vanish. That always makes me so confused. But then that’s exactly what I went and did too. I don’t regret taking a break from this site, but maybe discussing the reasons why will lessen the confusion next time someone else goes up in smoke.

Without going into too much detail, there’s been some personal stuff to work on. And I **have** made progress. I started keeping a diary. I bought new clothes and chucked the ones I’d been wearing all through high school. I realized that I’m a Slytherin and not a Ravenclaw—crazy, I know. Ever since I moved back from university, I’ve had a lot of time to think, and a lot of time to process things. Memories that used to depress me seem extremely undramatic to me now, and it’s getting harder to believe the way I felt when I shut down my fanfic account at the end of that first semester in Copenhagen.

I’d been to Copenhagen only once before I moved there for university. But it was my first semester out of highschool, and the intimidating prospect of living away from home for the first time—and in an unfamiliar city—was nothing in comparison with my eagerness to move on. In fact, the moving out thing went way better than I expected. Trust me, I’ll eat anything. No—what made me delete my old account had more to do with my roommate, probably.

I remember she gave me a mixed first impression. On the night I moved into the dorm, our room was tidy for the most part. There was no clutter on the floor, and our tiny kitchen area was nearly unused. But then I saw her sitting by this enormous computer desk, and it looked like it was the only part of the room she actually lived in, like the rent could have been for this one desk. The computer monitor was embedded in a wall of books, notepads, stacks of paper, and weeks’ worth of trash. I introduced myself, and when I went to shake her hand, I accidentally slapped it away when a coffee mug which had been balancing on top of the rubbish fell onto its side and I jerked my hand towards it in reflex. The next day, I worked up the courage to ask about the desk, and she explained, “The first year was pretty rough, and I didn’t know what to do with all the stress so it kind of ended up in a big pile.” She gave a crooked smile like it embarrassed her somewhat, but she gave no indication that she planned to ever clean it up.

Her name was Laura. In the beginning, I didn’t exactly dislike her, but she annoyed me. We had a shared trepidation about going out and meeting people, but Laura had friends she made disappointed when she didn’t go, while I had none, not even back home. What annoyed me was that the things she did when she stayed in failed to interest even herself. She watched _Doctor Who_ and played games on her computer, but what else? She said that she studied to become a journalist because it was a childhood dream of hers, but she didn’t seem to enjoy it at all. She just seemed stuck—like a manifestation of everything I feared.

The first time she met Carmilla, we were at a welcoming party for a large student society. Being in an entirely new place, I was inspired to try and make some friends, and though Laura wasn’t too keen, it was so close by that, in the end, she agreed to come with. There were plenty of newcomers like me at the party, but there were also people like Laura, searching for activities to spend their free time on. And then there were people like Carmilla, dressed for and expecting a different kind of party. Most of them left as soon as there were soft drinks in champagne glasses, but I don’t know why Carmilla stayed. Laura’s constant glances towards her couldn’t have been the only thing keeping her, could it? In any case, Carmilla was obviously curious, because a couple of hours into the evening—while I clumsily mingled with members of the student choir—I spotted her walking over to my roommate. The two of them talked for awhile before their raised voices drew my attention.

“Are you kidding me?” Carmilla was saying. “You’ve been checking me out since the moment I got here.”

Laura turned bright red. “No I haven’t. I’m just not used to,” she waved her hand at Carmilla’s outfit, “punk rockers, or whatever you’re supposed to be.” Heads were turning, and my shoulders nearly touched my ears.

Carmilla chuckled silently through her nose like a bull and declared, “What a colossal waste of time.” Then she left, leaving Laura alone on the stage to which the turned heads were the audience.

I don’t know much about the second time she ran into Carmilla, only that it was at another party. But this was the kind of party with beer and music and ecstasy. It was Carmilla’s kind of party. After the humiliating episode at the Summer student society, it was even harder to convince Laura to venture outside the dorm, but when I explained that I wouldn’t go if I was by myself, she had to join me—we were still in the polite stage of our acquaintance, and she was much more polite than me. I do admit though, I don’t know why I was so shy about going on my own. As soon as I arrived, I would instantly get drunk and wander off anyway. While I went and did my thing, I guess Carmilla found Laura in the crowd, perhaps engaged by a stranger, perhaps leaning against the wall, with her drink held in front of her like a shield. Whatever happened between them at that party, it must’ve really been something.

We were a little over a month into each our courses when Laura staggered into our room in the middle of the night. “You’re still up,” she murmured.

My eyes stayed on the screen of my laptop. “Did you have fun?” My social needs were met by singing in the choir, so I was furiously typing away on an essay which was due in a few days.

“I guess.” I heard her pour herself a glass of water. “The music was way loud. I should have brought earplugs.”

“Did you see that girl again? Carmilla?”

Laura choked on her water and had a coughing fit. She didn’t confess what those late nights were about until much later, but at the time, I figured that Laura had isolated herself for too long, and the pendulum was simply swinging in the other direction. Maybe I was too busy with school to notice, but I never would’ve guessed it was getting to be an obsession, definitely not an obsession with a girl who was mostly a jerk to her.

One evening, I’d been at the Summer Society building, making a mobile game, and I came back to the dorm to find Carmilla in the entryway, scanning the list of tenants. She startled when I swung the door open, like she’d been caught doing something bad, and it immediately made me suspicious. “Can I help you?” I asked.

Carmilla recovered quickly. She straightened up and put her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket. “No. I was just leaving.” Then, when I said okay and started towards the elevator, she changed her mind. “Actually—do you know if this is Laura?” She pointed to _L. Hollis & E. Olsen _ on the list.

I wasn’t sure if it was safe to tell her, so I was silent for a moment.

“Do you know her?”

“Yes.”

With some difficulty, she started to say, “Could you tell her to—that she can—”

I looked at her expectantly.

“Never mind,” she sighed and left.

I went upstairs to our room. As I opened the door, I said, “You’ll never guess who was downstairs just now,” but then I saw Laura sitting on her bed, holding a letter, and with a grave look on her face, and it shut me right up. My first thought was that maybe an American relative had died or something.

“I’m up for behavioural examination,” she said disbelievingly. She turned her blank gaze towards me. “I failed my last exam and now I’m up for behavioural examination.”

“What does that mean? Couldn’t you just retake the exam?”

“It means the rest of the semester determines whether they’ll expel me.”

I thought this might be the kick in the butt she needed. From what I could tell, Laura had barely scraped by in her first year, and now she was spending most of her time going out and sleeping in—it was no wonder it impacted her academic performance. Part of me suspects that this would’ve happened even if she hadn’t fallen into her new habits. What little motivation she had was quickly running out. And that cracks me up, because it means that Carmilla probably played a big part in her evaluation period, on the night when Laura had her first experience getting high.

Laura told me about it the evening of the day after, over coffee in our room. Though she went out several nights a week, she always came back to the dorm to sleep. But she hadn’t been in since last evening, which is why I asked if something happened. The whole campus was gearing up for Halloween, which was as much of an excuse to party as the holiday itself. She’d once again bumped into Carmilla, by pure coincidence of course, and they’d had some sort of argument about—it wasn’t important, Laura said to me. It had left her in a mood though, and no amount of dancing could shake it. So when she got to talking with a group of friends who thought it was time for a hit, she decided to join them. Bad idea. Laura found herself seeking Carmilla out again, making a scene and making an embarrassment of them both.

I asked, “What did you do? Did you get violent?” My coffee sat in front of me nearly untouched.

“That’s not important.” She took a big swig of hers.

To her surprise, Carmilla got them out of there together. She could tell Laura was out of it, and she took her to a McDonald's down the street to ride it out. Her memory was a little fuzzy after that, but she remembered Carmilla feeding her chicken nuggets and taking her home to her flat and letting her sleep on her bed. By this point, I can only assume the tension between them was unbearable, built up over so many weeks. But when Laura said, “Some stuff happened,” it was not in the hurried way she’d said, “It’s not important,” earlier.

The stuff probably was important though, because after that, she completely switched the clubs and events for studying and hanging out with Carmilla. They started seeing each other like regular people, instead of blindly fumbling around the campus’s party scene for one another. I even saw Carmilla in our dorm a few times, but she didn’t seem to like me very much. Laura said it was because I never smiled.

Halloween passed with neither me nor Laura feeling much like celebrating it. I have a hard time laughing at myself, and I hate dressing up—I always end up feeling stupid. And Laura had her hands full trying to keep her place at school.

“You’re still up,” I said as I returned from an evening spent in the library, revising a short story.

Laura was at the desk, actually doing coursework. “Yeah. I’m on the chopping block, remember?” She hit her palms on her forehead. “It doesn’t get any easier though. I can’t wait for next semester.”

“What about next semester?”

“I’m switching majors. I don’t think I’m cut out for journalism,” Laura said. “But I can’t switch if they kick me out, so I have to be a flawless journalist until the end of the evaluation period. Isn’t that ironic?”

I was impressed. “Laura! That must’ve been a difficult decision to make.”

She shrugged. “Whatever it takes to stay another year.” I raised an eyebrow at her and she said, “That’s when Carmilla graduates.” She didn’t need to say any more.

December was a drag. There was almost no snow, but it rained a lot. I was spending less and less time at the dorm, having decided to write a collection of songs in Swedish, but whenever I came back in the evenings, I would find Laura frazzled and impatient for her behavioural examination results.

Since Halloween, Laura had spent several nights over at Carmilla’s, but almost a month and a half after she was away for the first time, it was my turn to disappear, briefly. Laura was at school when I came by in the middle of the week to pick up a change of clothes, so I didn’t see her until the fifth day. It wasn’t quite lunchtime, and she was in the middle of clearing the last of the clutter off the computer desk.

“Where have you been?” she asked irritatedly. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

I collapsed onto my bed. “I was at the Summer Society building, finishing the music project.”

“You slept there? What about exams?”

“Oh. Those were last week.” Then, completely straight-faced, “But I was writing songs.”

Laura put her hands on her hips and scowled down at me. “You should’ve at least tried.” That made me snort, simply because of all it’d taken to make Laura as diligent as she’d become. My reaction irritated her even more. “We all make mistakes, but most of us still try. You’re always doing everything you can to distract yourself.” She turned back to the desk, making it clear that she was finished talking about it.

The desk was mostly cleaned up by now, and it looked oddly unfamiliar without all the junk on top of it, like a Christmas tree after you’ve stripped its decorations. I watched Laura pick up a tiny plastic bag which still had a couple of earplugs in it, and I watched her throw it in the trash. I thought of Carmilla. Somehow, I wanted to thank her.

“A letter came for you.” Laura said with her back still turned.

“Where is it?”

“You’re lying on it.”

I sat up and found the letter. It was from school. “Did you get yours?” I asked after I’d opened and read it.

Laura nodded. “I passed the evaluation. I’m staying.” Suddenly, I felt so proud of her. The feeling took me by surprise. “Can I see that?” she asked, and I handed her the letter. She read it quietly, then sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, but when my eyes fell on the desk, I smiled.


End file.
